Tagged Questions

Theoretical question deal with topics that do not generally have immediate practical uses. Please be careful when using this tag: your question may be more appropriate for the Computer Science Stack Exchange site.

I'm designing a language and was wondering how to incorporate C++-like references with regards to their place in the type system. I think they're useful for operations like indexing and dereferencing ...

I am new to web programming. Now unfortunately, I was a kid during the advent of the world wide web and didn't have access either. So now when I am just starting out, it feels like there's a myriad of ...

How can I write functions that are reusable without sacrificing performance? I am repeatedly coming up against the situation where I want to write a function in a way that makes it reusable (e.g. it ...

This is a hypothetical, yet very technically precise question I'm trying to ask all the compiler/static analysis programmers.
I'm trying to understand the extent of prohibitive features I would need ...

I've been trying to understand (pseudo)random number generator code from various sources and the concept of the period continues to elude me. To satisfy the minimum level of understanding, I've tried ...

While studying about NFA and DFA in Compiler Design I couldn't get how they converted an regular expression to NFA as shown in NFA.I would like to know why there is an epsilon transition between (8 ...

While I was studying about Compiler Design it tells that we need 'finite automata' while designing a lexical analyzer like DFA or NFA. So I would like to know whether NFA is only used for conversion ...

To my understanding message acknowledge deadlock problem is this:
In order to sync value X between A and B
A sends X to B
A waits for B to send acknowledgment to A so it makes sure B has latest X
B ...

When facing new programming jargon words, I first try to reason about them from an semantic and etymological standpoint when possible (that is, when they aren't obscure acronyms). For instance, you ...

At work we have a varied number of websites selling second-hand products. The bosses have noticed that there's often some overlap between the products sold on some of the websites and would like to ...

These days it's possible to hash a file client-side, send the hash to the server, and have the server check whether or not that file is already uploaded. If it is, we can skip the file upload and make ...

I'd like to write a simulation of Japanese Multiplication to get benchmarks on large calculations utilizing the shortcut vs traditional CPU multiplication. I'm curious as to whether it makes sense to ...

I'm attempting to teach myself the basics of finite automata and have been exploring the differences between Deterministic Finite Automata and Non Deterministic Finite Automita.
One thing that pops ...

I need to compare a picture and decide whether or not it is similar to another one. In this case, I would like to use a simple perceptron that compares pixelmaps of both pictures. But I have only very ...

It may sound naive, but is there any programming language, or research thereof, based entirely on category theory?
I mean this as opposed to embedding CT concepts as an additional feature (like for ...

In theory, if you were to open two computers that were perfectly synced together on a website that has a form. This form has fields where say for example the username has to be unique. Assuming both ...

I often hear that a real programmer can easily learn any language within a week. Languages are just tools for getting things done, I'm told. Programming is the ultimate skill that must be learned and ...

It seems like a lot of university-level computer science programs and programmer job interviews focus heavily on algorithms and data structures. I'm curious as to why universities and employers put so ...

I do not understand the following example. It says that a function X will be executed if either of A and B variables will be lower than 5. The go on and explains that there are three valid equivalence ...

I'm a new person to AI field and I have to research and compare two different architectures for a thesis I'm writing.
Before you scream (homework thread), I've been reading on these two topics only ...

One thing I cannot find anywhere is: is this approach limited to non-critical software? Because in critical (or just when customer wants us to follow his rules) we have no freedom in testing and just ...

Let's say I have 4 (A,B,C,D) parameters with 3 possible values, also 81 unique combinations. With e.g. orthogonal array, I will end up with 9 test cases, each combining 3 pairs. But that means that if ...

Given branch prediction, and also the effect of compiler optimizations, which code tends to offer superior performance?
Note that bRareExceptionPresent represents an uncommon condition. It is not the ...

I know the definition of an testing oracle but to me, it seems to be overrated. I have a specification, why should I bother with thinking about oracles? I just compare what the spec wants and what the ...